


The Impotence of Power

by TheQueenofMirth



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Post-Book 2: The Wicked King
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenofMirth/pseuds/TheQueenofMirth
Summary: Being High Queen didn't resolve Jude's problems with power. Cardan has some knowledge to share.





	The Impotence of Power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingod/gifts).

I am training.

No, I'm fighting.

The sword against sword noise fills the room, sweat covers my body, my muscles burn and the frustration of impotence moves me. Each one of my strokes is less accurate than it should be. They are also brutish. I attack and the sword almost falls from Roach's hand. He has been the only with the courage to face me. No one else has dared. They fear Cardan, their King and now - admittedly - my husband.

Maybe the issue also involves the hospitality of the folk, but, in Oriana's education, we never got to the courtesy rule in which a human girl saves the High King of Faerie and, subsequently, Faerie. We have never learned what this girl earns. But I do not blame Oriana and her lessons, Faerie have had no idea either. This has been a story that Cardan has shaped. The thought reminds me of Locke who reminds me of Taryn. I get distracted and it almost costs my life. I dodge the blow, but Roach's stroke still plucks Nightfell from my hand and knocks me down. My back hits the ground, what steals all my breath. I watch as my sword spins away. I look up and, for the first time, I see something in Roach's eyes.

It's fear.

Even though the world is spinning around me fast enough that I do not understand what is above and below anymore, I can still hear the absolute silence of a room filled by faeries holding their breath. Now that I'm their Queen, attack me means betrayal. A more blindly proud, or pettily vain monarch would have interpreted the moment that way.

My caprice is their fate now.

Roach approaches me with one hand outstretched, but I have no intention of accepting his help. First, I'm still very angry. Try to purge it is the main reason to explain why we are using actual swords and not training ones. Second, I don’t want to be a joke among the spies too. The courtiers can laugh and use their sweet poisoned words to despise me. However, in the Court of Shadows, I will not be taken lightly. I’m not a girl playing to be Queen, I’m their master.

And above all else - Queen or not - I'm still _me_. And I’m not good in be defeated.

Using both my legs, I kick the goblin's kneel to inside and the base of the leg outside. I roll out of his way while he took by surprise falls forward. When he hits the ground I'm already on top of him, sitting on his back with a dagger against his throat.

First, he freezes under me. His lack of reaction is a compliment. But then, when his body begins to tremble, confusion disarms me. I take the dagger away from his neck. Roach is a goblin and he isn’t a particularly tiny one so I can't imagine why I would make him tremble. I need time to understand that he's choking with a laugh.

“Tough as ever.” Without my consent, a smile spread itself in my face. It doesn’t last. A slow condescending clap fills the room. Cardan is here and much closer to me than he should be able to get without my noticing. 

I stand unbalanced and breathless with the world is still spinning around me, but I lift my chin and focus on not letting my hands and knees shake. I step back to give Roach space and Cardan’s arms find me. I let myself sink in his embrace. Every time he touches me it gets harder to keep my decorum. I’m flushing even before Roach blinks to me.

"Leave us." I feel the words more than I hear them. They are a breeze beside my head and a vibration in my back.

I watch the spies as they leave the training room looking for expressions of deliberate interest or attention. Some of them can’t really hide it. They should train more.

When we're finally alone Cardan spins me smoothly and precisely as if we were dancing. I’m facing his throat - his smell let me dizzy - when his lips brush my ear. "Your absence in the Living Council has been noted, My Queen." I rest my head on his shoulder knowing that I’m probably stinking right now. His finger goes up through the back of the neck until my head. He is so delicate that it could be a caress, but it’s truly an examination. Which means he has been here time enough to has seen me fall on the ground. “Why?” His question isn’t about my absence, it is about the sword - the real dangerous sword that I shouldn’t be used to discount my frustration.

I’m not daring enough to say that training swords are not sufficiently real to me, that I need the danger. He won’t understand this need, he will consider me foolish. So I give an answer to another question. “Because it's better having me training here than there” I don’t mean it sound like a joke, but I know it will sound like one. “stabbing Randalin.”

His laugh is joyless. The situation is quite complicated. Try to help me won’t help me. Defend me would worse than throwing me to the wolves himself. “I think Grima Mog misses you when you are not there.”

I groan. “Grima Mog misses seeing me being provoked.” The new General likes tension and craves for a little more violence in her life. And if she can’t do it, she certainly wants to see it. She would enjoy seeing me stabbing someone on a gathering of the Living Council, but I don’t want to give her the pleasure. "When I’m not there they can’t lose time provoking me. That way you may actually hear something of value.”

Cardan goes into an unusual state of silence. I know he uses his pauses with more ability than his words - Building tension, holding a bluff. - but it isn’t what he is doing. His fingers brush my hair hesitantly. I know his lips are parted because I feel his warm breath on my ear. He is gathering up the courage. And he takes time enough so I know that I won’t like it. "Having power is not what you dreamed it would be, is it?" I step away losing his arms. Cardan is right. This is exactly what has been bothering me. I’m High Queen of Elfhame and it isn’t enough. I’m still in a very vulnerable position, being challenged and mocked.

"Power?” The words escape, outraged and sharp. “I only have the power you bestow upon me,” I remember Madoc's lessons even as I try to forget them, even when I try to be something beyond what he has made me. "This is no power."

"I also feel powerless." I miss his embrace so much that it shames me, but, when he steps towards me, I step back again. I’m uncomfortable with him knowing me so well.

“I'll try to remember that,” I say, “the next time flowers bloom above our bed because you feel happy or I hear thunders because someone pissed you off.” Every one of those reactions has been about me. He never has said it, but I know. Throwing Cardan’s feelings in his face like that is awful. I’m exposing the intimacy he allows himself to have with me - even if we are the only ones in that room - and I'm betraying it. Yet, a pity part of me wants to make him feel as I’m feeling right now - exposed and vulnerable.

If I have hurt him, he doesn’t let me know. His face isn’t showing anything.

I hate him for that.

Cardan stretches one of his arms toward me. He takes my shin in his graceful fingers and makes me look into his eyes. His touch is gentle, but his voice metal. “To me, there is no use in thunder and flowers. I am powerless against time.” I feel myself shrink. This is the perfect way of getting back on me. I am feeling guilty and stupid. How could I resent his mother and brother for hurting him if I easily do the same?

I close my eyes but it can’t stop his words. "Power is not a cure against impotence. Even if you get more of it there will be always what you cannot do and what you cannot have. And that's why it will never be enough.” His voice gets softer and softer until it becomes a plea. “Don't spend your whole life chasing something that can't be achieved.”

I’m ashamed and terrified and he is wrong. He has to be.

He doesn’t know what he is talking about. He could have _felt _powerless as a prince, but he has been _a_ _prince_. “Cardan-”

He cuts me off. “You don't believe me, do you?” He approaches me again and this time I don't move away. “Let me prove it to you, my Queen.” Cardan kiss me in a way I don’t like to be kissed outside of our room. But while his lips are touching me I can't force myself to stop him. I melt and I burn. I get distracted.

He takes me by surprise when he whispers in my ear three magic words. Which I recognize for what they are, one ancient and powerful magic. I step away finding a wall behind me. This time he opens his arms letting go without put any resistance. He smiles too defiantly, too pleased. My heart hits my ribs hard enough to hurt. My hands get sweaty. And although I hear myself breathing, I'm not entirely convinced that I am indeed doing it.

How can he be that arrogant? How can he be that _fool_? Giving me this is more profane than making me - a mortal - his Queen.

"After all we've been through, you should have realized I'm not trustworthy."

He doesn't have the decency to look sorry. “But after what we've been through, I trust you.” He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “Do you think I shouldn't?” He teases me. “Are you going to use this power against me?” For a moment I really want to use it - pull his security from under his feet like a mat - in the next, I want to hide this knowledge so well that even I would never find it again. He grins to me mischievously. "I think we'll find out."

The High King of Faerie has given me his true name_. _

**Author's Note:**

> For darlingod from tumblr who really want this to happen.


End file.
